A group from Super Mario World fans are currently remastering the soundtrack for the SNES platform game (h / t Chris Kohler) with high quality versions of the original samples. But if you’re looking for some great orchestral versions of tracks you’ve loved for decades, these really aren’t that.
The samples were made available by “Gigaleak,” a massive (and unofficial) eviction Nintendo files that invaded the Internet last year. Among these files was the source code for Super Mario World2002 re-release on Game Boy Advance, which you wouldn’t imagine, also included the original instruments used for SNES music. From then on, it was simply a matter of replacing the compressed sounds with their lossless equivalents to create these “remastered” tracks.
But these technically high-quality songs don’t match the classic SNES game. See the theme “Forest of Illusion”, for example. The soft tones of the original are gone, replaced by a cacophony of reverberating melodies that sound more like someone has abused the effects of Fruity Loops too much than a comforting walk through a misty forest.
The new “Swimming” track presents the same problem. Being able to hear each instrument clearly and perfectly creates an overwhelming soundscape that seems very crowded.
And don’t even tell me about the “Athletic” theme. It looks like a pianist version of an iconic track.
That said, we cannot blame these specific creators. They are literally just plugging new instruments into old compositions and letting them rock, and on some level, I respect the desire to drag these songs (kicking and screaming) into the 21st century.
The problem is that these sounds were, I suppose, largely chosen by legendary Super Mario World composer Koji Kondo because they sounded good in inferior quality. Nowadays, studios have state-of-the-art Blu-ray discs and sound cards, but development in 1991 was all about getting around the constraints of both limited memory and now archaic audio technology. That’s why sprites from earlier ages don’t look as good on high-definition monitors as they did on CRT televisions: they were made with these disadvantages in mind.
These remastered Super Mario World the tracks don’t work for the same reason that I prefer to hear a street artist play an original song on an out-of-tune guitar than an orchestra playing one of the top 40 hits on its expensive brass and brass instruments. The way in which art is produced and portrayed is as important as its technical fidelity. Of course, these “high quality” and “lossless” samples may sound quite alone, but when combined with modern equipment, they lose all the heart and soul of the originals.
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Still, if they’re your kind of thing, you can hear a lot of those remastered tracks On here. It seems inevitable that someone will connect them to a ROM from the original game, which must be an … interesting experience.